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Barack Obama Wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
Barack Obama has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The BBC opines: "In awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian committee is honoring his intentions more than his achievements. After all he has been in office only just over eight months and he will presumably hope to serve eight years, so it is very early in his term to get this award. ... The committee does not make any secret of its approach. It states that he is being given the prize 'for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples.' This is of course an implied criticism of former US president George W Bush and the neo-conservatives, who were often accused of trying to change the world in their image." The Washington Post collects more reactions from around the world.
... criticisms of KDawson for posting this article start in 3...2...1...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
He also had a golden opportunity to let GM and Chrysler die and dump the money into public transit instead.
He also had a golden opportunity to close military prisons of dubious legality.
He also had a golden opportunity to appoint a supreme court justice who would apply the law as it is written.
He also had a golden opportunity to end a few wars.
Obama seems not to be one to take advantage of golden opportunities.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I really wish I had some mod points. That's a great observation.
Read the Fark book, and you'll soon see that BBC publishes/covers the same amount of crap as other networks/news agencies. I was actually read the book yesterday and they specifically talked about the BBC reporting a story that summed-up as "Thom Yorke decides not to speak to Tony Blair." I've never seen a more blatant non-news article.
As to bias, I won't comment, because I know my *own* biases and that's really the important thing in my mind.
But blind worship of *any* news outlet, no matter how "respected", is a terrible thing. Think critically and make your own decisions-- and be able to recognize bullshit when you see it, because you will see it.
Comment of the year
Figures no one will mod you up. It sucks to get hit with facts when discussing politics. I have yet to hear a convincing argument about how the democratic platform is even slightly constitutional. But why worry about that when you control the courts? I'm always hit with a cruel sense of irony when I hear the term liberty. I feel as though we have completely given up liberty and forgone a large number of individual, much less state rights granted in the constitution. When I discuss this with anyone who is in favour of restricted property rights or laws that seem obviously in conflict with the bill of rights or a health care plan that takes away individual rights to choose how we live our life I find the basic consensus is the constitution has no value any more. It is very disturbing yet both parties march to this drum too much of the time. I often wonder if anyone anywhere in the US could actually run on a platform of individual liberty and get elected. How sad is it that a basic tenant of the constitution like liberty, an inalienable human right, would not be able to win an election? I'm shocked that the promise of health care reform can only be done by taxing the very system they want to make more affordable. Where is the sense in that? Oh well we will get what we vote for.
The problem is that we have two primary political parties, and about two million different political views. Both parties are essentially extremely broad coalitions all under the same name. In many other countries they start with several small parties and then negotiate to form the coalitions without actually pretending they're all united. In the US however, there is this fiction presented that we have only two major political views.
What's even more messed up really, is that if you get simplistic and just view things as one dimensional left versus right, the bell curve will likely show the big hump between Republicans and Democrats. Which is why you see the candidates lean strongly left or right during primary elections, and then switch and lean towards the center during general elections. The situation seems perfect for a centrist party, except that the election rules and inertia conspire against that idea (the Reform party didn't count, it was more of a "we hate politics" group than any coherent platform).
After all, if you think about it logically, why should the views on gun ownership and prayer in schools be even remotely linked together? Why wouldn't someone who thinks that the government should keep its hands off of their guns also believe government should keep its hands off sex lives as well, and vice versa? Why should a belief for or against a strong economic regulatory system in any way correlate with view points on abortion? Why should opinions about whether "enhanced interrogation techniques" are valid have anything to do with a belief about whether climate change is a problem?
I've noticed for the past few years that the Nobel Peace Prize committee seems to definitely be moving in a direction not of honoring people for recognized achievements, but instead using the prize, seemingly, to try to promote an agenda. The parent's point is a good one - Obama hasn't really done that *much* yet, to promote peace - though I'm sure he has nobel, err, noble intentions, the actual results don't seem to be in yet.
So when do I get my Nobel Prize in Physics for watching all of TNG back to back?
Thanks for also proving the point that Liberals want to believe in lies so badly that they'll actually use a Slashdot troll to "validate" them.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100